Hello all,

I'm considering sending my son to a French Immersion School. Does anyone have an experience with having sent their children to a FI school?

I've saw an old post, but wasn't very usful - only one person responded, but it was years old I think.

Any comments welcomed.

Lyles

My children attended (one still does) French language schools, not immersion, but schools run by the French school board in Ontario. That worked out well, they're bilingual and one also speaks Spanish. The French school where they ended up (after some false starts) was good because it offered the Bac and classes geared to the SATs (they had a cramming class for kids thought to be able to break 1500). I think these exams are important if you don't know where the children are going to end up. I assume mine won't live in Canada so the qualifications with the broadest applicability seem to me to be the most valuable.

both my boys go to f.i. and they are both progressing well. it is more challenging for the parents like us who do not speak french when it comes to the homework.
there is a large % dropout rate as the grades/years get higher

I went to French immersion school for three years. I'm glad I did. Benefits - I learned French , met other kids from a variety of backgrounds, learned about the variety of dialects/accents and other French speaking areas of the world, learned how to swear in French so my parents couldn't reprimand me , met my first boyfriend (an Acadian) because he couldn't speak English in an English-speaking town... There are some disadvantages though... all my subjects were in French and to this day, I couldn't tell you what the English words are for certain things that I have only been exposed to during those three years - like a lot of scientific and mathematical terms - I just don't know the English equivalents. Oh, and I've since completely lost my ability to speak French fluently. Acadian boyfriend wanted to learn English and I never had further opportunites to keep it up.

I'd recommend it still.

My wife is a French immersion teacher, if ther's anything specific you'ld like to ask, PM me, no spam please!

Hi Lyles

I have many relatives in Canada some of which have sent their kids to French Immersion and some not. The advice that I have been given is that it is good in the way that kids get a head start on french and can become very fluent. Although, when the french immersion side is completed many of these kids are lagging behind on their english/canadian skills as the focus is on 100% french. Another concern was that being a parent with very little french experience and language it can be hard on the child as from a homework point of view they may have noone at home that can help assist them with it. I have also thought about and raised the same questions. As French is a primary subject at school in canada I have decided that my kids would be better off going to a normal school. If your kids are young enough some areas run french kindergarden. In my opinion this may be a better option. Others may disagree but I would say it would probably all depend on the child and how adaptable they are. I for one would not want to create problems and have them maybe lagging behind on entering junior high school.

My experience is with French schools, not immersion ones, but it's certainly not the case that the children who graduated from my daughters' school lacked English skills. One daughter scored 800 in the SAT language paper and the other 760. Neither of them won a prize for English so they weren't considered the best in their respective years. Very few of the graduates go to French language universties and many go to ones in the US, so graduates of French language high schools, or that one anyway, must be generally considered to be literate in English.

On the other side of the coin, it's quite possible to graduate from an English language high school in Canada and even from an English language university without speaking English to O level standard, so it doesn't follow that avoiding French schools necessarily improves one's children's English.

I don't think French is a useful language in Canada. It has political importance but, unless one intends to work in government, it's not of value to speak it and it will likely be forgotten after high school. The value of immersion is that, once one speaks two languages, a third is more easily mastered. If there was an option for Spanish immersion that'd really be something to consider.

Our older son, now in his twenties, attended a French immersion school from kindergarten to the end of grade two. He experienced difficulties in the FI program and, after extensive discussions with his teacher, school board staff and the kid himself, we moved him to our neighbourhood (English) school.

I don't know what his current opinion of those three years in FI is. I don't know if he, like HWP, would say he was glad he went to an FI school for a while. I'll ask him.

A couple of kids who used to live on our street attended a late immersion program, starting in grade seven. They were very successful. I've heard many positive reports about late immersion. Supposedly late immersion students are as fluent in French, when they graduate from grade twelve, as early immersion students are. I think one of the reasons may be that late immersion students choose the program for themselves, so they tend to be highly motivated. It's not something that their parents choose for them.

In a couple of your previous posts you've mentioned a German birth certificate and a Mexican marriage certificate. I don't know which languages are your and your spouse's native languages, in which language you speak to each other, and in which language(s) you speak to your children.

I have a Calgary friend who was born and raised in Quebec. She's married to a Spanish-speaking man from South America. She's a French teacher, and she used to teach at Calgary's francophone school. Currently she teaches French as a subject at an English school.

Anyway, she has always told me that it's important for each parent to be consistent in the use of the language in which he/she communicates with his/her children. She says this helps children to learn languages properly and to avoid getting confused.

Her daughters are around the ages that my son are. She has always spoken to them in French. Her husband has always spoken to them in Spanish. They picked up English from neighbourhood kids and from television, and later they learned it formally at school.

Interestingly enough, the older of these trilingual young women has fallen in love with the Netherlands, has studied and worked there, and has learned Dutch! So now she's what -- quadrilingual?

I think your reasons for considering a French immersion program, your and your husband's knowledge of French or lack thereof, and the part of Canada in which you'll be living, all come into the equation. If you'll be living in an English-speaking part of Canada that is heavily unilingual and if you and your spouse don't speak English, I don't think you should assume that French immersion will magically transform your kids into fluent French speakers.

I know that, contrary to what my husband and I were told during information sessions that we attended prior to deciding to enroll our older son in a French immersion program, we did experience it as a problem that we could not speak French and were unable to communicate with our son about his homework.

I agree with this suggestion. Spanish is a very useful language from a global point of view. If either or both parents spoke Spanish, it would help with the homework thing. We have Calgary friends whose kids are in a Spanish immersion program. Mom is Mexican-Canadian. Dad is American-Canadian. The kids' schooling is supplemented by summer vacations with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Mexico.

Wow!!!!

Thank you all for the wealth of advice, opinions and information.

I speak German at conversational level, but no French, (we were married in Mexico, just because it appealled to us - no ties there, so no Spanish).

I think my biggest concern would be the homework issue. I really do look forward to helping my sons with their homework and I'll be a bit of a chocolate teapot if the homework is in French.

It sounds like there are schools which teach primarily in English, but teach French as a subject from a very young age - similar to how they teach English from start to finish of the schooling years in European and African countries. Maybe I'll go that route. If anyone knows of such a school in Calgary, please let me know.

Once again - thank you all for your replies.

Lyles

Very interesting Judy, that was pretty much my experience too. I initiated the idea of entering late immersion, not my parents. They were quite surprised but had a 'yeah, go for it, ya crazy kid' response. I wish I could have continued past grade 9 but the family moved back to the BC coast (the immersion was in Calgary).

Does parking an Air France plane in a ditch count as French immersion?